A few weeks ago I provided a high level look at Salesforce Content. Salesforce recently added Salesforce Content and Content Delivery to all editions of Salesforce.
Now let’s dig deeper into what make Content and Content Delivery so useful.
The big problems Salesforce content and delivery solves are:
1) It makes it easy to find documents. It eliminates the need for hierarchical folder structures which frequently make it difficult to find what you’re looking for.
2) It makes it easy to share documents with people outside of your organization and be able to track when they viewed the document you sent them.
3) You can share documents with people outside of your organization and all they need to view them is a web browser. You don’t have to worry about if they have the application and the right version of the application.
Benefits of Salesforce Content include:
- Organization: files are stored in search able repositories called workspace rather than in hierarchical folder structures.
- Searching: Finding documents is done using a Google-like search. Just enter part of the document name, or a word in the file, and click find. Searching looks in body of the document, title, tags and other classifications.
- Subscribing: Subscribe to a file and be notified automatically when the document is edited or new versions are created.
- Previewing: You don’t have to download a file to view it. View it within a window in your browser. This is great when you’re on a WiFi or cellular connection and do not want to wait for a file to download.
- Sharing: Sharing is integrated with leads, accounts, contacts, opportunities, cases, products and custom objects.
- Mobile access: Share content with users so they can access it on their mobile devices. (This is a killer feature, Salesforce knows it and is charging extra for it for now, but expect it to be included for no additional cost in less than a year.)
I like Content Delivery. It makes sharing documents with prospects easier and a lot more powerful. In Content Delivery you control the level of access the recipient has. Access levels include:
- Vew in web browser only (via private portal provided by Salesforce)
- Can download document as PDF
- Require password before document can be viewed
- Set expiration data after which the document can not be accessed
Here’s a sample screen shot of the settings:
More Benefits:
- Recipient does not need to have Salesforce to view file, just needs a web browser. Example, want to send a PowerPoint presentation to someone? Rather than send them the document, send them a link to the file which they access within a private portal provided by Salesforce.
- You can be notified immediately via email after the recipient views the file (great for sales people who want to follow up with a prospect)
- You can see how many times the file was opened (gauges level of interest)
Salesforce is providing Content and Content Delivery at no additional cost to all editions of Salesforce. Salesforce does meter how much storage space your organization uses and charges extra for more storage capacity so its possible using Content may increase your costs. So be aware of how much storage space you’re using in Salesforce and plan how much more space you might need to support all the documents you would want to put into Content. But I think even if you had to pay for more storage space in Salesforce, Content is still a new feature that I recommend you try using.
StarrForce is a Salesforce.com registered consulting partner who provides Salesforce support and implementation services to maximize your Salesforce investment.